"Making the world safer for pollinators, one city at a time."
That's the mission of Bee City USA. It's a national effort to focus attention on the importance of honeybees to our ecosystem and to agriculture.
And Jamie Berlin, beekeeper and founder of the beekeeping group Ypsi Melissa, wants Ypsilanti to win the designation as "Bee City USA."
Berlin says Ypsilanti already has a number of initiatives in place that show the city's support for pollinators.
The Local Honey Project, part of the Ypsilanti Food Co-op, is where Berlin got her start, and she also helped found the Festival of the Honeybee, which will be celebrating its third year this fall.
"It really starts with raising awareness," Berlin says of her projects, "to give people the opportunity to experience bees. To experience not being afraid. To experience that connection that we all have with the environment that we live in."
